Thread: Thai Food is better in the UK!

I loved Thai Food in England and went to my favourite Thai Restaurant every week. But here.....well I am yet to enjoy it similarly.

Is it because the Thai diet is a poor persons fare?

Every partner I have had has not been very good in the kitchen. In bed yeeees!

Don't misunderstand me. I am not one of those farangs who thinks all Foreign food is crap!

One thing that I have found out guys, is that Thais cook very good Pasta!

You must be eating at the wrong places over here.

In the UK Thai food is tailored to the British palate.

Same with the Chinese and Indian food. Good luck trying to get a good lemon chicken, chicken curry or sweet and sour pork outside the UK!

You are correct Lucky, Thai food is shit, and I liked some of it in the USA, but very little of it, same here, The best I have eaten here was when I was in the hospital.
But fuk em, I got a freezer full of steaks and other good stuff to cook.

Where do you guys eat ?
One thing for sure is that in almost every tourist areas the food is very mediocre to bad even . But when you know what to eat and order , everything changes a lot . But I do think we in Chiangmai are spoiled , so many choices .
Don't know how it must be like going south .

Never really had Thai food in the UK, but most of the stuff here is very good, even some of the cheap stuff can be surprisingly nice. The only complaint I would make about it is that even in some of the more expensive places they tend to use generic pre-made curry pastes so that most curries taste a bit similar. Spent a bit of time making my own fresh pastes before and you get a much better variety of flavours, although it takes quite a lot of time and practice.

Well i love Thai food and the best place to get it is Thailand

Thai food, what does that mean for a starter?

There are many different styles, according to diet and region.
Western style Thai food is mostly central/southern style, but heavy on the coconut milk and light on the chili's, plus local ingredients often substituted.

There are notable exceptions, but western style Thai and Chinese just doesn't work for me. Chinese is more than deep fried stuff with a sweet, cloying sauce and spring rolls. Thai is more than mild coconut milk curry, and chicken in pandanus.

Some Thai dishes I like, some I do not. I resent the way some of the local Thai places- that fundamentally offer some pretty good recipes at good prices- just drown everything out with chilli. But they (including wife and MIL) are getting used to me, and adjusting.

Having lived in HK, I am rarely satisfied with western style Chinese (namely Cantonese, but very vulgarly done). Living in Thai, it will be similarly difficult to satisfy me with the microcosm of Thai food you get in a standard western Thai restaurant.

I rate good Thai noodle soups second to none btw.

Tom Yum Kung is nice if it's not too hot.
Fish is ok too. When it's very fresh and simply cooked.
Rice with Fried mixed veg also good.

But thats about it! The rest seems like cheap peasant food......

A GF once told me that I feed my Dogs, better than she feeds her children!

Originally Posted by Luckydog

But thats about it! The rest seems like cheap peasant food......

Maybe you should start eating somewhere better than Kiss

From my very limited experience, most of the staff in Thai restaurants in the UK are actually Burmese.

That said, my local Thai restaurant here in Sydney is staffed by Thais and the food is absolute shit - expensive shit I might add

I've had great experiences with Thai restaurants outside Thailand; depends what you order (and what you like).

I do talk to the hostess/waitress before ordering and ask what part of Thailand the cook(s) is from, and order accordingly. Curries if from the South, meat-and-veg if from North, and 'salads' if from Isaan.

Have had excellent chicken laab in Freiburg, Germany, Hammersmith (London) and Tampere, Finland. All three places, the cook came out of kitchen to see who was ordering Isaan food not on the menu.

Perhaps my palate is not as sensitive as other peoples

My experience is that Thai food is in general crap in the UK and in most Western countries, I lived in Peterboro for a while, the most convenient restaurant was behind the Queensgate centre, they could never seem to get enough heat or flavour into the food, no matter how many times I asked, it always came out insipid. Eventually the arrogant bitch that owned it said, don't keep asking us to make it more spicy, so never went again.
The most authentic Thai food we had was at a restaurant in Bristol, we asked if they had some authentic Thai, a white girl came out the kitchen and said in perfect Thai, what would you like? It was strange being in the UK, speaking with what looked a typical English lass, who spoke fluent Thai.
She cooked us up a great meal. She was brought up in Pattaya, her old man owned a restaurant there.

Some good Thai restaurants in Manchester, some expensive, but there was one place that did quite a cheap (6 quid) all you can eat buffet... it was OK, but a little sweet and mild.

^ There's a Thai buffet restaurant in Weert, Netherlands, same problem, mild and sweet-ish, mostly chinese-style dishes. Clientele is mostly Philips employees, and what do the Dutch know about food

Maybe we should realise that many westerners who 'say' they like Thai or Chinese food are in fact referring to Western style Thai or Chinese, which is not the same as the real stuff.

No problems there- you tend to like what you get used to. People who have lived in Asia for a while tend to have their tastes altered accordingly, and find it more difficult to find Asian stuff to their taste in the west. But like I said, there are notable exceptions.

^ Certainly true, couple of years ago I tried Patara in South Kensington, its owned by S&P ( the people who make those horrible heat & eat dinners) thought, owned by a Thai company should be the real thing but no. Their website doesn't seem to work properly but here are a couple off the menu. Thai Taco's ? and Lamb on a Thai menu


kamon beung DIY
ขนมเบื้อง DIY Do-It-Yourseft Thai tacos of chicken and prawn with cucumber tomato salad 6.95 7 * panaeng gae ping
พะแนงแกะปิ้ง Barbeque marinated New Zealand lamb skewers accompanied with aromatic curry sauce and pickled vegetables 7.95

My wife invented a dish called 'Lamb Mango' in the Uk and the general consensus was 'farkin ansome'

I find it impossible to get a good curry here in India, mainly because to me as a Brit. a good curry 'aint what they dish up here.

I'm with the others that think our OP has a similar problem, introduced to 'Thai' food UK style which bears little relationship to Thai food in Thailand.

Luckily I was introduced to Thai food by the Thai girlfriend of a workmate whilst sitting on a hotel room floor in HongKong with several other cute ladies, we'd got a job lot from the Panda in Wanchai if anyone remembers it. The same lady (now his wife) introduced me to my wife (in Rome of all places).

Originally Posted by More Volts Igor

I find it impossible to get a good curry here in India, mainly because to me as a Brit. a good curry 'aint what they dish up here.

If you go to some of the top hotels you'll find some.

funny enough, some of the best "Indian" food I ever ate was in Malaysia

[quote=benbaaa;584015]

Originally Posted by Luckydog

I loved Thai Food in England

Well you obviously didn't try the food at the places I went to.

I was trying to impress a girl once by my knowledge of Thai food in London. I asked the waitress (in Thai) for a som tam, and she babbled excitedly about me liking real Thai food, etc. What emerged from the kitchen was horrible - shredded carrots and sliced tomatoes doused in fish sauce and some dried chilli flakes. I complained to the waitress about it - and she looked embarrassed. She said there were no fresh chillis in the kitchen, no fresh garlic, no papaya, no dried shrimps, no cherry tomatoes, no fresh lime/lemon juice and no peanuts. Apart from that, they had all the right ingredients.

Fresh papaya is very expensive in the UK, it don't travel well and has to be flown in by air, which makes it retail at about £7 a kilo. Lots of Thai restaurants use swede instead to make som tam.